A boy of ten was kept alive with an artificial heart for almost a week before having a successful transplant in Oxford.

It is believed to be the first time a man-made device has been used on such a young child.

The ground-breaking op took place on Sunday, nearly a week after the artificial heart was fitted at the John Radcliffe Hospital.

The transplant was supposed to take place at London's famous Great Ormond Street Hospital, but was switched because the patient was too ill to be moved. In an unusual step, surgical teams travelled to Oxford for the op.

A Great Ormond Street spokesman said today: "He was up in Oxford and was too ill to be moved."

The child, believed to be from Oxfordshire, is recovering well and has now been transferred to Great Ormond Street.

Details of the operation, conducted by top heart surgeon Stephen Westaby, were due to be released later today.

It is the latest in a long line of firsts for Mr Westaby, who has often been praised as an innovator in the medical world. Three years ago, he used keyhole surgery for the first time to perform a heart bypass on 42-year-old dad-of-three Patrick Magennis. Bypasses involve taking a vein from another part of the body to bypass a blockage in a coronary artery and normally require the surgeon to split open the patient's breast bone to get to the heart.

Earlier this year Mr Westaby, of the Oxford Heart Centre, launched an appeal to raise £500,000 for research into a "bionic" heart, the Jarvik 2000, which he hopes to start trialling in the autumn.

The device could be the answer for people refused a transplant or awaiting a donor heart.

The battery-powered device pumps blood around the body while the diseased heart recovers.

Mr Westaby has been testing the revolutionary pump, which costs £60,000, is the size of an adult's thumb and weighs just a few ounces. It is also the first artificial heart small enough to be implanted in children.

But nobody will be given the Jarvik 2000 unless £500,000 is raised - so the Oxford Artificial Heart Appeal was launched.

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